67 Responses to Can you share some good news?

I made it to Mass and confession. I did my food shopping. I overdid and had more back spasms enough to make me frustrated and tearful. I had a nap and medicine and they got better. I have food (juicy nectarines and real non-processed pork shoulder). I am confessed. Jesus makes me brave. I intend to call my favorite parochial vicar and ask to see him about redemptive suffering. If he won’t see me I will re-read the Imitation of Christ and underline everything I haven’t underlined already.

AND in a few days the UPS man will bring me some adaptive equipment I have ordered. This is a good era to be disabled, smart people have invented all sorts of helpful devices. Forearm crutches are the BEST.

My fiancee and I are getting married in two months, and today she had a bridal shower and — I promise this is less shallow than it sounds — I’m really excited (and grateful!) about the new stuff we got! But I’m more excited about getting to share all that stuff with the person I love most! :)

We recently found out that we’re expecting our third little blessing from God! If the baby’s a girl we’re going with Mary Therese and if the baby’s a boy Patrick Xavier. We’re so excited and while we’re keeping it a secret in real life for a few more months I’m way too excited to keep it a secret online!

My father in law moved to our little town this Eastertide to be near us. It has been a great blessing for our whole family. I am so thankful that he courageously took this step after 77 years in his home village. He is also very thankful.

Eight of my second year students received the sacrament of Confirmation today. It was a beautiful and reverent Mass. My heart is full of thanks to God. Please say a prayer for these eight wonderful young Catholics.

On Saturday we learned that Abbot Hugh of Pluscarden Abbey has been chosen as our new Bishop of Aberdeen. Please pray for him and also pray for our retiring Bishop Moran whose health is giving us all a cause for concern.

I got an email from a young lady who bleg I responded to several years ago. She invited everyone who helped to clear her student debt to her first profession as a Salesian sister. My wife and I can’t go (new baby in the house!) and when we told her that, she replied that we were the third set of invitees to have that “problem”. New babies, new vocations, “Therefore, neither he that planteth is anything, nor he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.”

This. At the mass, I asked some young people who went to the youth vigil the night before, what they considered the best part of it – every single one said they were deeply touched by the silence and recollection in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

Later on, when he addressed our bishops and clergy, he reduced me to tears, saying exactly what needed to be said, on several fronts, and quoting Bl. A. Stepinac: “Let us not deceive ourselves… Either we are Catholic or we are not.” The bishops clapped politely, but most of the young clergy and religious gave him a standing ovation, and refused to stop the applause for a very long time. I’d say… there is still hope.

daughter # 3 is mobile, army crawling around… daughters #1&2 are still asleep I am enjoying some coffee, sunshine and morning prayer, with an amazing husband, after spending an entire weekend on retreat with Our Lord
PRAISE GOD FROM ALL BLESSINGS FLOW

My husband and I, who have been somewhat deprived in the social life department since moving across the country almost a year ago, went to a party last night. This was fun in itself, but while there we made new friends–a good Catholic couple about our age, with similar interests and background. New friends are such a blessing!

A draft of my novel went out to two of my critique partners! I still have work to do before I can send it to my agent, but that’s pretty good. Also, the publisher of my first novel returned my rights to me, and I may be able to get it back in print with a new publisher. :-)

My oldest son is going to an excellent state university on a full-scholarship to study the classics; my other son ripped through Greek I, and wants to take Greek II so by senior year he will be reading Homer in the original.

I and two good friends and classmates were ordained to the transitional diaconate on Saturday. I served as Deacon of the Word for the first time and preached my first homily yesterday for the (transferred) Solemnity of the Ascension. (I was also pressed into work for a later Mass and preached again.)

That is the BEST THING that has happened in my life so far. May Almighty God be praised!

(Oh, I also get to chant the Gospel as Deacon of the Word at my diocese’s Priesthood Ordinations this weekend!)

Sean, Cardinal O’Malley, administered the Sacrament of Confirmation in the Extraordinary Form (the first time he has administered a Sacrament in the E.F.) at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston, for Confirmands from all Parishes in his Archdiocese. A beautiful Mass, His Eminence delivered an Instruction/Homily, and sang all the Responses and chant Ordinary with gusto!! A truly Blessed and happy event, all the Latin Mass community wants to thank the Cardinal, Celebrant Raymond Van de Moortell, the Rector, Fr. Kevin O’Leary, and the assisting Priests, Frs Jonathan Gaspar and Dominic Gentile.

My two oldest sons (ages 5 and 3) started playing church for the first time last week. It’s been difficult because my wife is a non-practicing Catholic, so the kids are getting mixed messages at home and don’t understand why Church is important if mom doesn’t go. So to see them pick up on some stuff from church and start to play church on their own at home really lifted my spirits and made me feel like I was doing something right. Now they are both excited to become altar boys. It helps that we recently started sitting in the front pew and they get to see everything going on. Please pray for my boys, and especially for my wife that she has an awakening and starts coming back to Church.

I got to see my husband for the weekend (this happens about 4-6 weeks). Last weekend I was blessed to go on a silent retreat for two days, which I think has changed my life even more than just my initial confirmation into the Church. Our parish has two men being ordained to the permanent diaconate on Saturday. The weather here is glorious today. &c. AMDG :)

> Christ The King Abbey – Una Voce Northern Alabama is pleased to announce
> that Christ the King Abbey, a formerly schismatic community, is now in
> full communion with the Church. The monastery now celebrates valid
> Traditional Latin Masses on a regular basis as follows:
>
> Daily Mass: 7 a.m.
> Sunday Mass: 7 a.m. & 10 a.m.
> Address: 5060 County Road 1635, Cullman, AL 35058-1716
>
> The Bishop of Birmingham has assigned a priest there and two brothers
> from St John Cantius are there helping out.

This small abbey of “independent” Benedictines has for 20 years been an isolated and ignored backwater of traditionalism. I thought it would remain that way. It’s a fine facility that seemed
lost in time, out in rural Cullman county east of Cullman, Alabama. Now, the Abbey becomes the only place in Alabama where one or more EF Masses are said for public access every day!

The announcement of the Diocese of Birmingham (above) notes the importance of Summorum Pontificum in the reconciliation porcess. Many thanks go to Bishop Robert Baker and Benedict XVI for making this possible. There must be other “independent” groups likewise attracted to a similar reconciliation, which only Benedict of the last four popes has made possible.

My apologies if this is old news that’s been addressed recently. Old or not, it is amazing and very good news.

The Extraordinary Form of the Mass is once again being offered at the Arch-abbey 5 minutes away from my house, and I have been privileged to be able to serve Father’s Masses. Although we are still on a small side Altar in the Crypt, it is a good beginning! We hope to try to organize several High Masses this summer, and get the word out about the Latin Mass Society of Greensburg!

i went back to my college this weekend for a reunion, and was pleasantly surprised at how appalled i was at behaviors which once seemed not only normal, but preferable to my Catholic upbringing. God is merciful, indeed.

The wiring for the interior lights in my car is messed up so the lights stayed on all night and drained the battery which means I won’t be able to go to work today, I have a splitting headache from being awake all night from insomnia and my Mystic Monk coffee ran out this morning.

Our Lord sure does have a strange way of showing His love to His own :-). All the more o offer up for my Priests.

We attended our parish picnic yesterday at a nearby lovely shaded park by a river. We took some good friends with us and enjoyed lots of great camaraderie, good food and plenty of sunshine. Our parish in the mountains is very social and super friendly. Everyone stops and visits even with newcomers. It makes me happy to be there.

We teach CCL NFP. We had a couple that was struggling with infertility. They came to the third class with the good news that they are expecting. Another couple mentioned they might become teachers in an area that is 95% Catholic but hasn’t had any NFP teaching (until us with a spring series). The area is 95% Catholic because that what everybody else in the area is, but the people haven’t heard the good news about the Theology of the Body. Hopefully this is beginning to change.

Last weekend I got to sing in the choir at the Confirmation at Holy Cross Cathedral, Boston, and this coming weekend I’ll be in Chicago to see the 2nd of my three children graduate college, from University of Chicago; and then on to the ICRSS basilica on Sunday for Mass.

The Knoxville Latin Mass Community is looking forward this coming Pentecost Sunday to its first polyphonic Missa Cantata, with Palestrina’s Missa Brevis for the Ordinary, Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus for Communion, and of course the ancient Pentecost sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus.

Good news from Birmingham AL: one of our parish’s own young men was ordained to the priesthood Saturday. On Sunday I happened to see him and another young priest walking toward our church’s rectory, and they were both wearing black cassocks instead of the typical black pants and shirt. Hope to see that trend growing among our young priests.

1) Our pastor will be celebrating his first EF mass (no music) on Saturday June 26 AM here in Orangeville, Ontario! He went down to be trained by Fr. Samuel Webber.
(sadly our pastor is being tranferred to another parish at the end of the month)
2) A Solemn High Mass will be prayed on July 1st (Feast of The Sacred Heart) at 7pm in Toronto, Ontario with one of the Auxiliary Bishops of Toronto preaching !!!!! and the celebrant, deacon and subdeacon are all dicoesan priests of Toronto. (our pastor will be the deacon)
3) The first diocesan Solemn High Mass in 40 years!!!, will be held in the neighbouring diocese of Hamilton, it will also take place on July 1st at 10am in Kitchener, Ontario.

St. Joseph the Worker in Tyler, Texas, recently elevated to parish status, the only church in the Tyler diocese to celebrate the EF exclusively, has had a small weekly announcement on the Saturday religion page of the Tyler paper since February this year. After the occasion of becoming a parish, we submitted a photo of Bishop Corrada and our Pastor, Father Scott Allen, FSSP, with a caption. Yay! They printed it. Then the religion reporter asked to attend a Mass and write a story about the Latin Mass. It appeared in last Saturday’s religion section – front page – great photo – and the headline “REVERENCE” in huge letters. The article was nicely done, if having within it the usual errors made by protestant writers and a couple of minor misquotes. All in all, it is to be celebrated. I hope it will attract others to our small but growing parish. We are in the Bible Belt, for sure, with a Baptist Church on every other corner; but Catholics are growing in number hereabouts. AMDG

Our 10 month old loves her daddy like no other! He just finished his 1 year in Iraq and I thank God for her love for him. The rest of us of course had a fabulous two weeks getting back to family mode and I even went on weekend retreat at urging of my husband.

Yesterday, I bought & assembled a bike for my 9 year old boy. That night, without me asking, he used the prayer book of his 7 year old sister to say the Rosary prayers clearly & distinctly. He used to mumble, if not butcher with gibberish, the prayers – probably because he really does know them word by word. I called his attention to it before, but he took concrete action last night – without me suggesting how.

In March our E.F. community was informed our FSSP priest was being transferred and not being replaced. Since that time we have established a “Priestly E.F. Rotation” of five diocesan priests and one said his second public E.F. Mass yesterday to a resounding success. Now there are two other diocesan priests wanting to learn the Mass of Ages.

Two Saturdays ago (May 28th) I went to my First Latin Mass! It was a Low Mass with one server, but wow was it reverent. Confession Before Mass (which I made use of), people mostly dressed in decent clothing, and I actually felt good anticipation for having the Body and Blood of Christ in the silence during the Liturgy of the Eucharist/Mass of the Faithful.

Also I’ve been out of work for months and finally I got an interview for two temporary full time positions in a hospital laboratory. 6 months only, but it’s a a step back in. Hopefully it is Christ’s will I go there, but if not I do have a few activities planned including a 6-day youth ministry certificate course at the local university.

This summer has been going very well thus far. I’ve been going to Mass more on the weekdays than I’ve ever managed to in summer past, thanks in large part that I am serving at my high school’s daily TLM about once a week. Also, it is a dear friend’s birthday! Deo gratias!

My oldest just graduated high school on Friday. I am also very pleased to note that at the party we threw yesterday, he was able to “hang out” and socialize in a pretty normal-looking fashion with three of his buddies from school. Considering that he has Asperger Syndrome and really struggles with these kinds of unstructured social settings, this was a very encouraging sight for his dad and me. Onwards and upwards!

Mrs. Bear, will this mass be at St. Peter’s North of Bathurst and Bloor area??? 2) A Solemn High Mass will be prayed on July 1st (Feast of The Sacred Heart) at 7pm in Toronto, Ontario with one of the Auxiliary Bishops of Toronto preaching !!!!! and the celebrant, deacon and subdeacon are all dicoesan priests of Toronto. (our pastor will be the deacon)

Our son will be a freshman in college this fall. Today we took him to ‘New Student Enrollment’. We had an opportunity to speak briefly with a priest from the campus Newman Center. He told us the current chapel there is too small, so they are having a Capital Campaign in order to build a larger one. He said that the new chapel will have altar rails and the altar will be configured so that both forms of the Mass may be celebrated, because this is what the people wanted. He also said they currently offer an EF Mass once a month. Of course, this is the diocese of Lincoln, NE.

Good News? I know that a lot of family and friends are praying for the intersession of Blessed JPII, as I am facing a third major surgery this Friday to combat a grade 4 glioblastoma(brain tumor). I pray simply that God’s will be done, as always. And trusting that I will be able to make a good confession, receive the Blessed Sacrament in good grace, and be anointed before surgery. I have been personally praying for JPII’s intersession for someone else more deserving….. I remember the young seminarian with the inoperable brain tumor that I have read about here in the past few years. Should I get a miracle, Iwould love to go to Rome, accompanied by my sister, who is a nun. I also have a connection to JPII, in that I believe one of my doctors was a consultant to JPII, when he was diagnosed with Parkinsons). Should I survive until such time that another miracle is credited to JPII, I stil lhope to attend thecanonization.
Thank you, Father for having provided such a rich forum here, which has helped me enormously for the past five years or so, that I have been a lurker.

Praise be to Jesus Christ! This morning I received my letter of acceptance to the Canons Regular of Saint John Cantius. Postulancy begins in a couple of weeks so I have a few things to get in order prior to my departure. Please keep me in your prayers as I enter religious formation and continue to discern God’s call. Be assured of my prayers for all of the WDTPRS community.

On Saturday, (along with Steve Cavanaugh above) I sang at the Confirmation conferred in the EF by His Eminence, Sean Patrick Cardinal O’Malley. The next day, I was present as our parish Sodality of the Immaculate Conception and Saint Rose of Lima inducted four new members after the Sunday EF Mass. This beautiful society has quickened Marian devotion in its approximately two dozen members, some of whom are as young as 11.
One of the many pictures is here:http://www.flickr.com/photos/maryblessedmother/5803970100/in/photostream
A picnic luncheon completed the festive day.

My wife and I are expecting our fifth child two weeks from this Wednesday, on June 22nd. Just a little over a week ago we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary too. Our other children who are 18, 15, 11 and 2 are very excited about a new sibling (with the possible exception of the two-year-old who probably does’t understand what is just over the horizon). We are so happy that God has blessed us with another child! Please remember us in your prayers.

An hour ago I was able to hold my newsest grandson for the first time. Born nine days ago, six weeks premature, and still in the NICU. However, by the grace of God those conditions keeping him in NICU are disappearing, one by one, and soon he’ll go home with mom and dad. Deo gratias! In fact I think I feel a Te Deum coming on….

My daughter loves animals — particularly cats since we used to have several — but we now live in an apartment where pets are not allowed. So I checked into volunteer opportunities at the local animal shelter and found that they have two rooms set aside for visitors to sit with, play with and brush cats (it keeps the cats well groomed and gets them used to being around people). We went there on Sunday afternoon and we both really, really loved it! No better way to get your fix if you are Cat-holics like us…

I had the pleasure of seeing 25 youth and 5 adults confirmed at mass on Sunday. Bishop Slattery gave a wonderful homily. It was wonderful to listen to his inspiring words to the confirmandi. After mass, Bishop Slattery blessed our new parish hall. What a wonderful day.

@ Young Canadian RC Male:
Yes this mass will be at St. Peter’s N of Bloor & Bathurst – which is a Paulist run Church!!??
St. Patrick’s Gregorian Chant Choir will be singing under the direction of choirmaster and organist, Surinder Mundra.

The priest who was my pastor and dear friend for nearly all my life passed away after over a decade of intense physical suffering. He received the Last Rites and had three priests by his bedside as he died. His last words were: “My Lord and My God!”

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Grant unto thy Church, we beseech
Thee, O merciful God, that She, being
gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may
be in no wise troubled by attack from her
foes.
O God, who by sin art offended and by
penance pacified, mercifully regard the
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own might may be crushed by the power of
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in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world
without end. R. Amen.

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Food For Thought

“The legalization of the termination of pregnancy is none other than the authorization given to an adult, with the approval of an established law, to take the lives of children yet unborn and thus incapable of defending themselves. It is difficult to imagine a more unjust situation, and it is very difficult to speak of obsession in a matter such as this, where we are dealing with a fundamental imperative of every good conscience — the defense of the right to life of an innocent and defenseless human being.”

- St. John Paul II

A bit more food for thought…

“Only one sin is nowadays severely punished: the attentive observance of the traditions of our Fathers. For that reason the good ones are thrown out of their places and brought to the desert.”

For your consideration…

"One of the most dangerous errors is that civilization is automatically bound to increase and spread. The lesson of history is the opposite; civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost. The normal state of humanity is barbarism, just as the normal surface of the planet is salt water. Land looms large in our imagination and civilization in history books, only because sea and savagery are to us less interesting."

- C.S. Lewis

More food for thought:

“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”

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More food for thought…

"All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void."

- Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 176

Even More Food For Thought

"Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties:
1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes.
2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests."

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Additional Food For Thought

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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Food For Thought

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. . . . Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

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